Echo
by Amrei
Summary: He had cast her out and nothing he did could ever bring her back, but in the right hands one's lifeblood was a powerful tool and even if he couldn't have his Belle, he could still get the next best thing...


**AN:** My entry for the first round of the Rumbelle Showdown 2014.  
 **Prompts:** No touching, reckless, guilty pleasure

* * *

The one room untouched by the violent bursts of temper that overcame him as suddenly as a summer storm and left behind just as much wreckage as any of nature's wilfulness's was the library. Belle had deserved the world to be lain down at her dainty feet for the kindness she had shown an old monster, for being a creature with such inherent goodness that she could not only suffer his presence but find it in her to love him. He had thrown it all back in her face, fool that he was - monster that he was- and she had gotten nothing of what she deserved, only derision and pain and death – and the library left behind, when she had long turned to ashes.

It was here Rumplestiltskin cowered when his temper cooled down, the short taste of life turning bitter in his mouth when the emptiness returned once again; the silence only ever more pronounced when his ears had just rung with shouts and the clattering of his broken treasures.

In truth this had always been the one room completely hers in the castle, and he fancied he could still feel her presence in its quiet corners, mayhaps some of her spirit lingering where she once had spent hours happily engulfed in one book or another. It was the one room spared from his temper tantrums, mainly because it was not his to destroy. It was hers, always had been hers from the moment he had shown it to her after their mishap with the thief and the first glimmer of her unexplainable faith in him. It was his memento to her more so than even her chamber and when he touched one of her books it was with quiet reverence, even when the regret of her loss cut him to the bone.

The one book that would start the temptation was not remarkable in any way, but for the fact that its back was partly broken and maybe that was what had him pick up the small tome; one broken thing in company of another. Its pages were slightly crumbled, but even with its kinks not overly so, as if someone – blue eyes and careful hands– had taken care to straighten them after it became damaged, maybe by a fall, and there it was: At the corner of the page was a dark brown stain, most likely the reason for the fall the book had taken from Belle's careful hand. Blood left behind from a cut on the treacherously sharp edges of the paper and for a moment Rumplestiltskin felt his breath halt, as he reached with his magic for this relic of his love. One's lifeblood was a powerful tool in the right hands, a means of enslavement, of torture, but also of healing and, even in his thoughts he had difficulties voicing it, containing an echo of ones very being.

It was never a good idea, to silence pain with magic and Rumplestiltskin knew its cruelty too well to doubt that the price would always be higher than any balm one could conjure. He knew it only all too well, but the knowledge didn't stop him from reaching this little spark of his beloved with his magic.

He closed his eyes as he reached out with his magic, not daring to hope, but also not willing to see this try fail. There it was, a hollow echo of the spark Belle's spirit had been, but still so much more of her than he had had for far too long. There was a fluttering in the magic around him and he haltingly opened his eyes and…

"Belle…" It was not her, not truly, in spite of the breathless sigh that had escaped him mostly without his doing. The spectre before him was the littlest bit see-through, but it smiled with her eyes, a kind look upon her face as she knelt before him. She was perfect, just as she had been, still unmarred by the torture that had ended her, but he still forced his hand not to stray to her, lest the illusion shattered upon his touch of something not quite there.

The creature was not Belle, but he still unburdened himself to her, and it was almost enough when she sat next to him, as he told her of his regrets. There were tears in her eyes, but she didn't turn away. There, next to the shadow of her ghost he could almost believe that he could be forgiven. Almost.

The first time he could barely feel the strain the magic had taken on him, but the moment the illusion faded away, there was a restlessness that didn't fade, no matter how he tried to chase it from his thoughts. As long as it had been with him, there had been a calmness he hadn't felt since he sent Belle away and even though the only thing left to him was a feeling of treason to his true love for accepting solace from a false illusion, he still brooded over charms and potions, until he found a way to make this single drop of blood last a little longer, with just a little more magic and there she was again.

She sat next to him in the library as he told her about the latest step he had managed on his way to find Bae and even if it cost him a little more to bring her back every time, it was well worth the painful emptiness this overuse of his magic left him with

Belle in turn stayed by his side, but at the same rate that he had to increase the amount of magic pouring into the spell, her smile dimmed and concern settled in her gaze. She started to reach out for him more and more, but touching her would have destroyed the illusion and he couldn't help but ask himself if she was aware of the nature of her being, or if she believed herself to be the real Belle. The only way he could justify gently pushing her away with his magic, was by reminding himself that he was not pushing away the real Belle, not again, but it still broke his heart. Funny, he had thought, that it couldn't possibly be crushed even more.

While reality started to sour his guilty pleasure the price of the magic he had spent so freely started to catch up with him. A numbness started to steal over his senses as he went out on his deals, only short instances of faintness, but they still made him realise the truth of the situation all too harshly. The Dark One's magic was vast, he could destroy armies with a single thought, but by now he was conjuring the ghost of a barely still existing echo and what he had already used up, he had to replace with his own magic. If he only had to conjure a simple spectre, it wouldn't have been a problem, he could've made thousands, but he tried to capture the spirit of his Belle and even the mightiest spells couldn't reach that which was where magic could not reach, in death. It was a tightrope walk on a spider's net, and the strain took its toll on him.

Desperate, he poured even more magic into the spell, as he conjured her the next time and for a moment the force of the magic leaving him chocked him, but then Belle stood before him in all her glory, looking so distraught at seeing his breathless self as he had not seen her before. His head hurt as if someone had filled his skull up with fluid iron, but she was there, the one thing making it all bearable and he didn't care. She looked at him imploringly, but he was too caught up by drinking in her sight to truly care and as she started moving her lips, forming words she could not speak, a slow thought entered his mind. His Belle should have everything she wanted and maybe with just a little more magic he could give her a voice. The strain forced him to his knees and he felt the jolt as the magic reached the edge of the possible and painfully backfired on him, as it couldn't find even the slightest trace of its medium. For a moment she was before him, solid for once, and her sweet voice sounded oh so sad in his ears as she spoke "Rumpel-"

He knew he had asked too much and in this last few moments the magic still supported the illusion, he reached out to her. He could have just this one touch, before it was too late once again, but the magic burst before he could reach her.

His fingers slid through empty air and he was alone again in the silent library. The book next to him had a burn mark where the blood had been.


End file.
